Irene Natividad, chairman of GlobeWomen Research and Education Institute, is a former adviser to Hillary Clinton who has campaigned for women’s rights since the ’60s. She runs the Global Summit of Women, which aims to improve economic outcomes for women and get more women into senior management. It will be hosted by Sydney in 2018.
I’m a quota girl. There are now 22 countries with quotas [for women on business and government boards] but they’re not all as strong as Norway, which had sanctions and punitive action if you didn’t comply.
But my feeling is that, even if countries didn’t reach the 30 per cent or 40 per cent, you will still end up with a pool of experienced women directors that you didn’t have before, so they can’t say, “We can’t find them.” A quota is forcing demand because the supply is there. When there’s a law it forces companies to look for the women who are always there.
I have no patience for women who oppose quotas. I tell them, “Get over it.” It’s just a door, so we must push it open. What it creates is a pool and a mindset that comes as a consequence of seeing women in action. We just want a shot at power, decision-making.
[With the summit] I wanted to create a platform where women can come on their own. We’ve been called the Davos for women but I want us to be inclusive as opposed to exclusive. I also want to show how you can create change without quotas, how institutional leadership does matter and how so many of your top women run things here.
I actually gave an award to the Australian Stock Exchange because they made gender diversity a listing requirement; that’s rare. No stock exchange has been able to replicate what ASX has done.
Price of leadership
I think I’m a born organiser. In college one of my jobs was to get waiters for university events. One time, they had them doing setup from two o’clock [in the afternoon] and it’s one o’clock in the morning and I asked the guy in charge, “Can you give them a raise? Because they’ve been working almost 12 hours?” Anyway, he fired me but he did give them additional money. So I learned early on the price of leadership.
On the side I kept organising women. Then I was elected head of the National Women’s Political Caucus and I gave up my academic life where I had security and moved to Washington. It gave me a bigger platform.
I campaigned for Hillary [Clinton] twice.This was my dream, to have the first woman president of the United States. I knew her when she was first lady of Arkansas and on the Children’s Defence Fund and I was head of the National Women’s Political Caucus.
She was more equipped than any presidential candidate I remember, but clearly you saw misogyny in play. She won every debate and it didn’t matter. What hurt me the most is that 52 per cent of white women voted for Trump and they were educated and middle class. Why would you take this man who abuses women over a highly qualified woman?
It sort of tells me that women themselves don’t have faith in women’s leadership because they haven’t seen it and they’re dubious. I can’t explain it any other way.
Irene Natividad spoke to Joanne Gray.
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